“For.”
Shove.
“Me.”
The flashlight clanked onto the stone at the end of the passage and without thinking he caught himself with both hands before he too fell onto the rough floor.
“Ahhhhh,” he gasped in pain. Without Carrie to witness his agony at further injury to his finger, and his abused back, he groaned, let himself rock back and forth on the floor, cradling his injured hand.
The new scrapes on his back added to his pain. His shirt hung in tatters down his back now, but he didn't care. Although the lacerations on his back made him feel as if he'd been whipped, his hand screamed in pain. Bracing with both hands as he fell forward had jolted the injury unbearably. He'd tried to be careful, but it had been impossible.
“It is just pain,” he told himself. “Eh-la, will you give up then? Hands hurt, back hurts. They do not kill you.” He grunted as he shifted on the floor. “Lying here, that will kill you, Davros. You will use your body as much as you have to, to get out. Business you can do, without a finger or even a hand. But not if you die down here, idiot.” He cursed again as the throbbing continued.
For now, he had to absorb the pain, then shunt it aside so he could keep moving.
Grunting again, he shifted to his knees, struggled to rise. It took him four tries, but he managed to get to his feet. Because she'd ordered him to, he drank his fill, draining off half the water in the canteen. Because he was sweating, he sluiced some of the water over his head. His clothes had dried, such as they were.
“So. This I can do,” he mumbled, shaking the water and sweat from his eyes. His head hurt and he could tell that his fever was getting worse. The water felt colder than it was, but he was grateful for the effect. He needed more of Carrie's aspirin and it was at the end of the tunnel.
“That is where I will go then.” The sound of his voice echoed in the tunnel in a strange way, soft and sibilant. Part of his wandering mind focused on that. The sound. The other part focused on the journey and its end.
Carrie.
He needed more of Carrie, but that was not to be. She had turned him down.
But why had she turned him down? He hadn't asked, just reacted. He'd never proposed to anyone else, ever. He'd never had anyone that he'd wanted to ask. He frowned as he squinted into the darkness.
He switched on the light and stood again, wincing in renewed pain.
“Yamoto,”
he cursed softly, crouching his way through the next section. When he could stand upright, he stretched, feeling the blood ooze on his back once more. “Eh-la, it is a walk in the park. It will go easily. I will do this.”
He turned off the light again, remembering this section of the tunnel better. There was only the one gap left and it was closer to the front of the tunnel. For a moment, it seemed as if the walls were closing in. It was the fever this time, he was sure, rather than actuality. To combat it, he focused on Carrie, waiting for him at the end, at the cell. He would not leave her alone, and she would be there when he made it.
She might not wish to be his wife, but she was not indifferent.
What if it was all a lie? What if she's part of this? Those were the deadliest lies, the ones told by your family, those you thought were your friends.
The intrusive, insidious thought slithered into his mind, like a black snake in the inkier blackness of the tunnels.
“No,” he insisted, telling the shadows what he believed. What he knew. “Not Carrie. Not her.”
She doesn't want you. Not you, or your money. Not your children. Not you,
the darkness whispered at him.
“Go to hell,” he growled in English, and again in Greek for good measure. “No matter, she is my friend, and she has become my lover. That does not change.”
He moved on. The darkness said nothing more, and he was grateful.
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“Here.” Ana thrust the coordinates at Gates. “Don't worry about the trace. She got us here and here was right. Find thisâ” She pointed to the numbers. “And let's move out and get there. That's where Dav is. If we'd gone with the Agency lead, we'd be in Ecuador or something. We're close now and we can't be wrong. Or late.”
“Argentina,” Gates corrected, taking the paper. “We'd have gone to Argentina. What does the rest of this mean?” he asked, even as his fingers flew over the keys and screen after screen shot up, disappeared, and reformed on his machine.
“It means that she also gave us a lead on who did this, and who else's after him.” She whipped open her own laptop, booted it up and began a series of searches.
“And this last bit?” He held up the paper, pointed to where she'd written
Me?
He waited, an expectant silence that she couldn't ignore. She reluctantly admitted the truth.
“A complication. A big one,” she confirmed. “She said there's someone down here who knows I'm here and he's hunting me.”
“Hines.” Gates made the obvious leap. She'd made it too, when the woman told her. Ex-CIA Special Agent Hines had been one of the wild cards in their art fraud case, the case that introduced Ana to Gates, and had nearly gotten them all killed. He'd profited from the sales, covered up the connections, and murdered other agents to silence them. He'd tried to kill his former partner, but McGuire had managed to not only evade him, but hold his own against the thugs Hines had sent to do his dirty work.
It had meant lots of red tape and paperwork, but McGuire was in the clear for killing several of the men sent against him. Meanwhile, Hines had disappeared. From Hines's perspective, Ana and McGuire were his last two loose ends.
Not good, since Hines was an expert marksman.
“Yes. And I think McGuire's here too, tracking him.” She could see the fury and fear on Gates's face. “I have no control over him, you know that,” she defended. “He's a free agent as far as both the Agency and our company are concerned.”
Gates visibly struggled with his anger. “Idiot. Mucking up the works,” he growled.
“Yep,” she agreed, frowning over her data. “But if he can keep Hines off our collective asses, he'll be an asset.”
The unintelligible noise Gates made in response was a mixture of a grunt and some foreign-sounding expletive. He hadn't been idle as they talked, either.
“Got it,” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet. “We're moving out.”
“Satellite photos?” she demanded, following him.
“Downloading.”
They hurried out, laptops in hand, knocking on doors.
Within minutes they were in the cars, checked out and heading out.
“How far away?”
“Thirty miles. Rough terrain, looks like. We're too far south. We have to come up the highway, hang a left and then go on a...” He squinted at the screen. “Looks like either a gravel or dirt road.”
“The actual coordinates?”
“Looks like a hut, or a small building with a small open field. Not sure what else is there. There's a pattern on the ground that's probably only visible from the air, but I can't tell what it is.”
Ana held her phone out to him. “Dial McGuire. I have to keep my eyes on the road.”
He did and she fitted her earpiece to her ear. When he answered, she said, “McGuire, where the hell are you?”
“Same place you are.” When she didn't respond, he said, “Damn it, girl. I'm in Belize. Is that what you wanted to hear? I told you I was going to go hunting.”
“Shit,” she cursed, knowing he wasn't going to stop on her say-so. His grudge against Hines was too deep and too personal.
“We're knee deep in shit,” McGuire said. “Got a lead, followed it. I'm betting I'm fairly close to you, since he's after you and he's after me, and some-the-hell-how, he's figured out what I'm doing down here.”
She glanced at Gates, mouthed the words “mute it.”
He did, and she said, “He's tracking Hines, thinks he's pretty close to us because he said Hines is hunting me.”
Gates's reply was succinct. “Fuck.”
“Perfect response,” she said, signaling him to unmute. “Hey, McGuire, think you can keep Hines off me? We're headed toward a reserve; we have a lead on Dav's location.”
“Excellent.” The muffled version of McGuire's gruff voice came through the small speaker. “Hope to hell you find him alive and well and all that. I know what you look like now, missy, and most of your team. Don't think I'll shoot anyone by mistake,” he drawled. “I've got your back. Go get 'em, girl.”
“Will do.” They clicked off.
“Damn it, I need him not to be here,” she growled, irked that he was, that she was worried about him running around in the jungle. He wasn't exactly young. She'd come to think of him as sort of an honorary uncle, and she didn't want anything to happen to him.
“We need Hines not to be here,” Gates corrected. “McGuire's always useful.”
“Okay, that's true.” She shot him a glance, sighed. “He's on it, he says.”
Gates glanced down at his computer, then back to her. “Then he's on it and we'll have to trust him. We're approaching the turnoff. If the road is bad it's going to slow us down.”
“I know,” she said, knowing too that every moment counted now. Every single one. “Can you get enough of a signal to check that ancestor Web site? Maybe that can give us something on who we're dealing with.”
“Yeah, I can do that.” He busily punched keys. Without looking up, he added, “I want to check on Declan before we go in, so I may stop on this to call.”
“Call now.”
“This is running anyway,” he said, and pulled out his phone. He clipped on the satellite attachment. The local towers could handle Ana's phone to McGuire's; they were in the same country. To call the United States, they'd have to be sure they got the boost.
It was several long minutes before the phone connected. Georgiade answered on the third ring, and Gates put it on speaker.
“Hey, boss!” Georgiade sounded thrilled to hear from them. They exchanged glances. Was he the mole?
“Hey,” Gates replied. “How's Dec? And Thompson, Queller and Damon? How're you feeling?” he rattled off the questions before Georgiade could reply.
“I'm good, Thompson's still sore. Queller's acting like his dog got shot because he didn't get to go with ya'll. Damon's doing good, though he won't be handling the big car for a while, till he heals up. Thompson's mopin' too.”
“Dec?” Gates said, hoping that Georgiade's order of information wasn't best news to worst news.
“Improving,” Georgiade said, and his voice took on a note of caution. “He's awake, and eating, but he doesn't recognize us. Doc says he thinks he may have hit his head really hard going down, temporary memory loss.” Georgiade paused, added, “He recognized his folks though. That was good.”
“That is good. Tell him we're thinking about him, okay?”
“Okay. I'm takin' my shift at the hospital in a little while. Thompson's over there now, with the new guy, Geddey.”
Ana heard a slight squeaking noise from the backseat and glanced in the rearview to see Callahan's white face. She'd forgotten that Callahan knew there was a mole. Like Gates, whose expression was troubled, Callahan seemed to be worried that Thompson or even Geddey might be their leak.
Since he hadn't heard anything to make him stop, Georgiade went on. “Geddey is hangin' tough. Doing pretty good getting the hang, you know? He's checking in with Dec a lot, makin' sure he's okay.” Georgiade paused, then added, “He's a stand-up guy.”
“Good to know it,” Ana said, feeling like she had to say something. She still felt odd, knowing that Geddey would be looking after Dav. If they found him alive, that is.
“Who's taking next shift?” Gates asked.
“Damon and Queller. With ya'll gone, we're a bit short, not to mention gimpy, all 'round.” He chuckled at his own joke. “They're headin' out in about thirty. You want to talk to either of' em?”
“No, not right now,” Gates answered when Ana shook her head. “Have Geddey call me when he gets back.”
“Will do, boss. Ya'll be careful.”
“We will.”
Gates disconnected the call and, without glancing at Callahan, said, “It's good that he's awake. And it may be good that he can't remember. That may make him less of a target.”
“He's not our mole,” Callahan said, staunchly.
From the other seat, Holden met Gates's gaze with steady regard. Holden didn't look like he wanted it to be Declan, but he didn't look like he thought Declan was innocent either. They'd taken Holden into their confidence when he too had come to them with evidence that something wasn't right on the plane, or with their data.